


Sam, I Am

by RubyofRaven



Series: Formative Narratives [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Trans, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brothers, Character Study, Childhood, Childhood Memories, F/F, Family, Femininity, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Gender Roles, Growing Up, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Patriarchy, Teen Angst, Trans Character, Transgender, Transitioning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyofRaven/pseuds/RubyofRaven
Summary: Dean likes to tell this story about when you were little. Smirking, like he's embarrassing you, he says, “Remember, Sammy, that time I had to fight you over a princess dress? Man, you musta been about three. Picked it up when we were at an EZ Mart getting supplies. Dad didn't even realize you'd grabbed it until we got to the check out. It was all purple an’ glittery and you didn't wanna put it back. Cried all the way back to the motel.”You don't remember this, not specifically. When you try, all that wells up is a bone deep longing that aches like whiskey in an open wound. And yeah,thatyou are all too familiar with.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & John Winchester & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore & Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, John Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Formative Narratives [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1964140
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43





	Sam, I Am

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! 
> 
> My lovely and talented friend RubyofRaven has graciously posted this fic on her account for me. She’s been incredibly helpful and supportive, so shout out to her! I was inspired to write this fic because I could not find many fics where Sam is male to female transgender - especially ones that addresses the stresses of growing up in a highly masculine and isolated situation. I really wanted to focus on the formative gendered behavior expected by and subtly/casually enforced through familial behavior. There are so many toxic masculine behaviors in Supernatural, especially in the early episodes. Sam’s formative environment growing up was male-centric and intensely patriarchal. While I have no intention to bash Dean or John, I find it realistic to canon that - if Sam expressed more feminine behaviors - Dean and John would be hard-pressed to understand or accept that part of Sam’s identity.
> 
> The main warning I would like to give is that, toward the end of the fic, Sam makes a comment about being broken. Identifiying as transgender does not mean a person is in any way broken. Sam makes this comment largely as an emotional response resulting from having to navigate a non-traditional gender identity without any support in an environment that is, in many ways, toxic.
> 
> Disclaimer, I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters, plot events, etc.
> 
> A second disclaimer, I do not identfy as transgender. I have endeavored to address, specifically, themes of transgender identity - and more broadly themes of gender - with sensitivety and respect for how complex, varied, and beautiful every person’s unique identity is. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> -MMR

Dean likes to tell this story about when you were little. Smirking, like he's embarrassing you, he says, “Remember, Sammy, that time I had to fight you over a princess dress? Man, you musta been about three. Picked it up when we were at an EZ Mart getting supplies. Dad didn't even realize you'd grabbed it until we got to the check out. It was all purple an’ glittery and you didn't wanna put it back. Cried all the way back to the motel.”

You don't remember this, not specifically. When you try, all that wells up is a bone deep longing that aches like whiskey in an open wound. And yeah, _that_ you are all too familiar with.

\------------------------

You are raised in a world of masculinity. (Mostly toxic masculinity - but you wouldn't learn that word until college.)

The consistent figures in your life are Dean and Dad. They are: stubble, loose jeans, gruff silence, buzz cut hair. They are: motor oil, gunpowder, and whiskey. They are: “Man up” and “Boys don't cry” and “Save people, hunt things.”

Still, you see fleeting glimpses of femininity. Waitresses, bartenders, teachers, the actresses on TV - women who are only ever in your life for a few hours at a time. Women who become interchangeable with every hundred miles you spend staring out the impala’s rear window.

You don't remember your mom. At first, you think that you are drawn to (what Dean calls) girly things because you miss her, because femininity is a mystery, because - unlike Dad and Dean - you have no experience living around it.

_It_ meaning the shiny hair that curls past ears, the smell of artificial flowers, the soft colors, the bright lips, the smooth faces, the easy affection of “Hun” and “Sweetie.” 

All of it is just so foreign, so different from your own world. 

That’s all it is - curiosity.

\---------------------

You are eleven when Dean catches you staring at a _Playboy_. It’s just the cover and it’s his own damn fault for leaving it on the kitchen table with everything else he grabbed in the last grocery run. Dad is away on another hunt and Dean has gotten careless. 

Dean laughs and says, “Puberty hittin’ already, Sammy?” 

You blush and stutter out a “no.” And it’s true. You aren’t interested in sexy photos at this point. What drew you to the magazine was the fact that you were seeing what a woman’s body looks like. People around you have been increasingly making comments about how “You’ll be a man soon” or “You’ll grow into a handsome young man.” They’ve seperated the boys and girls in health class and have given awkward talks about how things are going to change in the next few years as you all “blossom into strong young men and beautiful young women.” 

Your whole life people have been telling you you’ll grow up into a tall man with a beard and a deep voice. You’ll hold open doors for women and drink beer and do a million other little nonsensical things - some of which you like (you don’t hate the sips of beer you steal from your brother’s bottle when he’s not looking, you do hate what beer does to your father) and some of which you don’t (you are _never_ growing facial hair).

Everyone says you’re going to grow into a body like your dad has, like your brother has already been growing into for years now. And the closer it comes, the more you think about it, you find that you… don’t really want that.

So you point at the magazine and say, “It’s weird.” Dean snorts and musses up your (too short, always too short) hair.

“You’ll see one day,” he says, “You’ll become a man and you’ll like girls.”

You scowl and shake your head adamantly. Dean laughs at you and says, “Man, you keep making that face you’ll end up looking just like Dad.”

Dean is wrong. A lot of things are confusing right now, but you do know that you don’t want to be the man everyone says you’ll be. You look at the picture of the woman, and you don’t want to be her specifically - half naked on a _Playboy_ cover - but when you think of the shape you want to grow into it’s much closer to hers then your father’s. 

Ironically, Dean does end up being right about the liking girl’s part, though.  
\--------------------

You hoard clippings from newspapers and magazines in the bottom of your duffle bag - wrinkled pictures of dresses and braided hairstyles and nail polish. You still keep telling yourself it’s curiosity that makes you seek out these symbols of femininity. It’s a mantra in your head: _curiosity, curiosity, it’s just curiosity._

Until one utterly normal day when you are twelve Dean says, “Stop being such a girl, Sammy,” and you realize:

_No, that's what I want to be._

\-----------------------

You can’t though. You shouldn't _want_ to. Because your whole life “girl” has been an insult. Every time you were called a girl, it meant stop being: weak, stupid, helpless. 

Then you meet Ellen and Jo. They are: strength, intelligence, beauty. Jo pulls back her shiny, long hair, steadies a rifle against her shoulder and out shoots Dean. Ellen matches Dad shot for shot of whiskey, her lipstick a bright ring on the rim of her glass. They are: flowers, gunpowder, clean denim. 

And you realize you _were_ stupid. Not for acting like a girl, but for thinking like a boy.

\--------------------

Dean calls you bitch and you don't even know how that makes you feel. It's emasculating, and feminine, and sexist, and oddly affectionate. You call him jerk because he is one, and because you don't know what else to say. 

\---------------------

Dean gets hurt during a hunt. The grave goes up in a burst of flame as your brother tries to hold the bloody meat of his calf together. After that it’s a blur of Dad yelling, the rumble of the impala, the dank smell of the latest motel room, the burn of whiskey in an open wound.

When it’s all over, you sit by your brother and tell him you’re glad he’s okay. He punches your arm and says, “No chick-flick moments, man.”

The punch doesn’t hurt, but you wince anyway. You wonder at how you can love someone so much who is so bad at understanding you.

\--------------------

With memories of Ellen and Jo firmly in mind, you begin to think maybe, just maybe, you could be a girl. You don't know how, but you're damn good at researching seemingly impossible things. 

(You _do_ know that you can't tell Dad or Dean.)

There's not much information available in 1990s rural Midwest, but you find enough that it starts to seem possible. You learn that there are other people like you, people who feel like the outside doesn't match the inside. There are words for what you feel, what you are. There are support groups and procedures to help you. 

You start making a list in your head (never on paper though, where Dean might see it, _Dad_ might see it). You’ll need to move to a city, preferably on one of the coasts. You'll need a job, to pay for food and an apartment and to save up money. 

You'll have to leave Dean and Dad. And that hurts. But they’re whiskey and silence and “Man up, Sammy.” And it will hurt so much more if _they_ are the ones to leave _you_.

But first, you need to turn eighteen. Until then, you just have to wait. You've been waiting your whole life, what’s a few more years?

The longing is still there, still echoing along your bones, but there's hope now, too.

\----------------------

Then puberty hits and everything is _hell_. 

You'd been living in some sort of denial in which you thought maybe you could hold off adolescence forever. That you'd stay short and narrow shouldered and smoothed chinned until you could turn eighteen and go away and wear the clothes you want, grow out your hair, buy make-up, save up for top surgery. Then no one on the street would ever call you _him_ , they'd just look at you and know you were _her_.

But suddenly your shoulders are getting wider while your hips _aren’t_. Your chest stays flat and the first time your voice cracks you refuse to talk for a week. You have to start shaving your face (but not your legs or underarms because your father or brother would notice). And as if it all wasn't unfair enough, you keep getting taller and taller and taller until you tower over even Dad and Dean.

You look in the mirror in dismay at your changing body, and think:

_Now not even Dean will call me a girl._

\----------------------

At sixteen you let your hair grow out and sometimes Dean calls you Samantha. He thinks he’s being funny, that he’s getting a rise out of you. And he is, but not for the reason he thinks. You don’t give a shit about defending your manhood, you don't even want it. But to dangle womanhood in front of you like that, when it's so far out of reach (over a decade spent wanting and still two goddamn more years to go), that _aches_. 

You want to be Samantha, but you aren’t, and he's made it into a joke.

It makes you so angry you have to count your breaths. It hurts so deep you can't take them.

\--------------------

Finally, finally, you turn eighteen and you go away to college. To a city on the west coast. And leaving was a shit show, but God, wearing skirts and lip gloss, being called _her_ , makes you feel more whole than you have since - well, probably since you were three and told you couldn't have a purple princess dress.

Dad and Dean aren't talking to you, because you chose a full ride scholarship to Stanford over hunting. Thinking about how they would have reacted to the whole truth scares you more than the monsters ever could.

But you have a list you made when you were fourteen and you're finally, finally following it, and next November you're going to have top surgery. 

_This_ , you think, _this is as good as it gets._

\------------------------

Then you meet Jess in statistics class and things are better than good, _she_ is better than good. She is funny and smart and beautiful and her hair always smells like vanilla and she chews her nails when she’s thinking and -

And when you ask her out for coffee she says yes and smiles at you so wide her eyes crinkle at the corners.

Being with her makes you feel more like _you_ than you've ever felt with anyone - more than you've ever felt being alone, either.

You feel more than whole with Jess, you feel like you were never broken to begin with.

\---------------------

You are nineteen when you seriously start thinking about changing your name. Three times you leave your dorm with a purpose. Three times you walk to the courthouse. Three times you stand outside the doors. 

Because Samuel is a man’s name, your grandfather's name. A man you've never met, but someone you already know you do not want to be.

And Sammy is the name your dad and brother call you. Sammy is the boy you used to be, the boy you never want to be again.

Two times you leave without signing the papers.

Because your name is all you have of your mother. Sammy doesn't feel right, but neither does leaving it behind. 

(Jess suggests Samantha. But Samantha is the joke that made you almost mean it when you told your brother you hated him.)

Your solution comes unexpectedly from a barista at the campus coffee shop. You're standing in line with a list of potential names in your pocket, mentally debating whether you should add Mary to it.

The guy in front of you is flirting hard at the poor barista. Her name tag says Sam, and the dude says “Short for Samantha, right? Such a pretty name.” His eyes drift down to her boobs and stay there. You watch the girl’s smile turn from something tired into something sharp. 

“It's short for nothing,” she replies. “It’s a literary reference, actually.” 

The guy perks up like he thinks he has a chance. You try really hard not to laugh out loud. “Oh?” he says. 

The barista _hmmms_ before reciting, “I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like assholes - so scram.” 

The guy scrambles to pay as quickly as he can and rushes away from the counter. One of the girl’s coworkers gives her a high-five. The barista’s smile is genuine as she rolls her eyes at her friend. You step up to order your coffee and the girl glances up and says, “Can I get a name for your order, miss?”

And you realize you don't need a name to make yourself a girl, you already _are_ a girl. You just need a name you can make yours. 

You think: _Sam, I am_


End file.
